


Make It Rain

by madcowmama



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, lil bit o faberry, quinntana friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1824745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madcowmama/pseuds/madcowmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories about Quinn's friendship with Santana and her friendship/relationship(?) with Rachel. Was a series, now one story for ease of download. Kept the originals as was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Need A Lion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn calls after the breakup.

###  [I Need a Lion](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/33106622347/i-need-a-lion)

“Quinn? I thought you’d dropped off the face of—

“What the ever-loving fuck, Lopez?”

“Wha—”

“What the ever-loving fuck?  Sam called me.  She won’t stop crying.  He said it was like the sound of 50,000 crying people crying.  I don’t know what movie he got that from.  Her parents are looking for a shrink.  Where the fuck are you?”

“I—”

“Because some Girl.  Looked at you.  Lopez, any girl or boy in their right mind would look at you.  Fuck.”

“Quinn? You’re saying ‘fuck’ alot.”

“So you go.  You go now, and take her expensive presents, and go on your knees, and you beg her, beg her to take you back.  You need to go now.  Because if you don’t, I swear I will cut you.”

“That’s my line.”

“I’m in the Yale Fucking Drama Department. I can use any line I want.  And you had the fucking— I want a phone call from Sam or Britt, tonight, saying that you went and did what I said.  Clear?  I’m hanging up now.”


	2. Choose Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana needs Quinn's help.

###  [Choose Me](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/37659833829/choose-me)

Quinn,

You know what I said is real, and you know I’m always gonna keep it real with you. It’s just that sometimes we make choices, you know? Sometimes it’s the best choice, sometimes it’s really clear and it feels right, right? And sometimes maybe it’s not. And sometimes, when we’ve made the choice, and the next choice, and the next choice, sometimes even if each one seems right at the time, it leads to something that’s maybe not.

I don’t know how to say this.

You know, right, that Louisville was Brittany’s idea. She got Coach Sylvester to get me the scholarship, and that meant I don’t have to kiss up to my father for the next four years. It made so much sense, I mean, then. You talk about dreams. I have dreams. Maybe they’re not the ones you think they are.

And then things happen, right? It sounds like things are happening with you. You are making choices. You are trying to keep your eyes open. You are trying to keep your eyes on your dreams and life happens right in front of you. And you make choices every day, every hour of every day. That’s what I was talking about. So do I.

I know you’re still mad at me because of Britt.

Look, Brittany’s just hurt a little bit, she said so. And now. And now she’s moving on. For now. It’s part of the plan. I knew this would happen. I was sure of it. Britt needs what she needs, and if I can get her part of that, it will be worth it, because she’s going to know I helped her get what she needs, even when I can’t be there, and she’ll remember when I’m back, when she’s done with school, she’ll remember that I helped. She’ll remember. Six months from today, she’ll remember. Six months from today I’ll be by her side and she’ll graduate, and it’ll all be okay and fine. This is just a little adjustment.

I know sometimes you don’t get to make the choice. I know that if you don’t get to make a choice, it can change the way you make choices after that. I know that.

Quinn, I need your help.

We had these slushy cups when I was little. Cups with some kind of fluid inside and we stuck them in the freezer overnight, then put juice or koolaid or something in them and scraped the sides with a spoon. The slush froze against the sides, then we scraped it into the middle and let another layer freeze against the sides, and slowly, very slowly, the cup filled up with slushy. It took awhile. It took patience. Always wanting more and sooner.

So, here’s the thing: I keep freezing around the edges and my cup never fills up.

I know, I know, wanky. But there’s nothing wanky about it. In fact it’s the opposite. Maybe you know the feeling. I know you gave Rachel the train pass. So maybe you know the feeling.

You were always the brightest, Q. You know how to make things happen. Sometimes they even work out for you. And the fact is, however you feel about me now, we are two legs of the Unholy Trinity. Other than Britt, you’re my last best friend. Please help me.

Please help me get her back.

Very Truly Yours,

Santana

 


	3. Reciprocity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn faces a couple of decisions.

###  [Reciprocity](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/39861241117/reciprocity)

Quinn stares down the tiny green oblong tablet between her fingertips. So little. How can something so little make such a difference? She worries. It’s supposed to take a month to have its full effect. So there’s a month left? To what? Feel fully? Feel like shit? How will it affect her, anyway? Damp down all the feelings? Or just the sad ones? How about the angry ones? Will it kill her creativity? Or just make it impossible to concentrate long enough to sink down, down, down?  
  
She starts outlining how she’ll approach acting if she can no longer feel her way into a role. Learn the text. Learn it out loud. Mark the text for intonation, meaning. Imagine what the feeling should be, even if she can’t feel it herself. Mark it all in the text. Learn the text deeper. Learn it out loud. Imagine the costume. Study the sketches. Imagine the way it feels. Is it a corset? Boots? Revealing? Frumpy? Barefoot? Long and flowing hair? Updo? Short? Glasses or no glasses? What age? What year? What region? Mark it all down. Learn it. Learn it out loud.  
  
It’s been crazy. She has to maintain her grades or she won’t be able to continue in school, and this school is her golden ticket. She knows she can follow it up. It’s just so cold here. Not so much in temperature, Ohio can be much colder, but the massive old stone buildings, the gates, the other students, even the way they talk. So many East Coast boarding school kids. So much money. She prays she won’t have to switch majors. But if the little green pills can keep her here, she’ll do whatever she needs to in order to stay here. She’ll give the little green pills what they demand.  
  
Seeing everyone at Thanksgiving was so great, it was like nothing had changed. She felt on top of the world for four days. San and Britt seemed just the same as ever. Lies. Going back, seeing Kitty’s adoration, singing and dancing with friends, that was awesome. She did miss seeing Rachel, though. She did miss her. She’s missed her for two months now. No, four. Five. Right, five. Five months of making herself not facebook her, making herself not email her, except once every two weeks to remind her those train passes had expiration dates. She’d been so sure she’d use them. Now… not so sure. And the little green pills must be better than crying jags on her way to rehearsals. Must be.  
  
She’d thought her friendship would be worth it to Rachel.  
  
Of course, Rachel has her school, her rehearsals, her… whatever. Rachel’s busy, that’s all. Rachel doesn’t have the time. Or inclination. Maybe she’s a burden to Rachel. All those emotional ups and downs have a habit of making other people uncomfortable. Well, the downs do, anyway. It’s hard to maintain any kind of friendships. Maybe Rachel thought she’d been doing her a favor last year, acting like her friend, kind of. Maybe Rachel needed space. Maybe it was reciprocity to just back off. But she doesn’t want to back off. Hanging with Rachel made her even out, feel stuff in a calmer way. Like she could deal. Maybe the little green pills will, too.  
  
She gave those tickets to Rachel, but was it out of generosity? Or was it out of need? Longing? Was it selfless or selfish? She really hoped it would bring them closer together, but now… now it seems the fact of them, the fact of her having given the tickets to Rachel, is making a mess of things. That is, if Rachel even notices or remembers. Because the tickets aren’t really about Rachel, and Rachel does tend only to notice what’s about Rachel. But Rachel…   
  
Quinn realizes with discomfort that Rachel is… beautiful. Her own brand of beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless. And utterly unattainable. Was that what she was trying to do with those train passes?  
  
No. Good God, no.  
  
So what is reciprocity? It’s a two-way, selfless flow. But nothing’s flowing here. Quinn perceives herself as being giving and Rachel as not, but maybe Rachel sees herself as being giving and Quinn as not. Maybe they are both waiting for the other to approach the line in between them. Maybe the train passes went over the line. Maybe what was meant as generosity seemed like an imposition. And then the avoidance.  
  
Damn. If there’s one thing Quinn’s stellar at, it’s fucking stuff up.  
  
Ha, she loved Santana writing to ask her for help. As if. The last time she tried to help, Santana ignored her. And Rachel ignored her. And the other glee kids ignored her. Even Brittany has been too preoccupied to contact her.  _Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea!_  
  
Sometimes she makes the drive to overlook the ocean. It’s so big and makes her feel so, so tiny. Like everything that bothers her must also be tiny. The professor and his wife are tiny. Tiny. And the checklist she makes to try to get things under control is likewise tiny. First thing on the list: first, you breathe.  
  
Santana wrote to ask her for help. What’s reciprocity? How to help without fucking stuff up? One line: First, you breathe. Hopefully that helps. That’s all Quinn can manage right now, because she’s trying to remember how to breathe. And she has to immerse herself in her daily activities so she won’t keep trying to contact Rachel, and then keep keeping herself from contacting Rachel. It’s crazy.  
  
And this little thing, it’s little. It’s a really low dose, she looked it up. She marks three months from now on her calendar, a trial run. So she can learn it. And takes the little green pill.


	4. (kind of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santana calls Quinn.

###  [(kind of)](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/41650988577/kind-of)

It is more or less the way she’d imagined: considerably more even, but with a price. It’s as if her right hemisphere has been short circuited, or really more like it’s underconnected, and she has to make do mostly with her left. What used to flow through the conduit of her body and mind now has to be perceived, pondered, pre-amped, and pushed out. Her scene work in class has become stilted. She is full of self-doubt. But: she is no longer crying on the way to rehearsals.

Funny, isn’t it, how the ups win her friends and attention and fun sometimes, how the downs alienate people always, and how people stay away even longer than the downs last. And super-funny how the even bits make her disappear (kind of). So now, she’s invisible. Except when she’s making an ass of herself onstage. She’s still competent, it’s just that it feels less than it used to; it feels squeezed, forced.

And it’s not like this other thing was unexpected. She was vaguely resigned to it already, but reading it: another variation of “It’s not you, it’s me.” It’s not like she hasn’t heard that one before. Several times. (She’s even used it.) It’s just that after several times, it seems like a pattern, and at the heart of that pattern, at the heart of it is one thing. Herself. It was probably the sweetest, nicest, most polite rejection she’s ever read. But No still feels like No. Rachel’s never coming to New Haven.

The adrenaline is still surging through her system, same as ever. Hot. Same as when her father threw her out. Big or small, rejection has the same effect, no matter the little green pills.

So, three weeks in. Three weeks. This isn’t even the full effect. Her acting sucks. She can’t connect with her (kind of) friends. She’s no longer the party girl with her party girl power. Or the HBIC with her HBIC power. It’s so fucking cold here.

What’s that? What’s that sound? Why can’t it just shut up? Phone. Just the phone. Pick it up.

“Q? I’m going to New York. Meet me?”

For a moment, she can’t catch her breath.

“Quinn? Are you there?”

“Yeeeeaaah?”

“I’m staying with Hummelberry. They have this huge place, I’m sure you could crash on the floor with me, c’mon, meet me there.”

The returned train pass is still in her hand, and it hasn’t expired quite yet.

“When?” She checks her calendar. She could do it, for a day or two. And Rachel would never have to know how deeply she’s cut her.

Two more weeks. The full effect. Maybe by then she’d know better how to feel stuff in an even (kind of) way. She wouldn’t even have to hang out with Hummelberry. She could go on the town with Santana, who at the least knows her better than anyone else she’s seen since June.

It’s crazy, but suddenly she wants the possibility of connection, or the re-connection, enough to risk the further heartbreak (is that what it is?) of a couple days with a disinterested Rachel.

“Hmmm, maybe…”

“No bullshit, Fabray, be there. Be there. Because Hummelberry will make me crazy if you’re not. And because— because— “

“What?”

“Never mind. Just be there.”

And that was that. Suddenly the girl who has been her lieutenant and her backup and her enemy and her frenemy and her friend (kind of) is treating her like she’s worthy of her time and care and attention, even if it’s still a little prickly. Even if the ridiculous fool still hasn’t done right by Brittany, she has to admit Santana offers something Rachel hasn’t since she reached New York. Reciprocity. Her own brand maybe, but reciprocity. Suddenly she feels wanted, she feels somehow important, she feels… loved (kind of).

Her back still aches, and her legs tingle from time to time, but she keeps moving forward, as best she can.

She unlocks her phone and taps in a message:  _Crashing your party with Santana :) Q_

And another:  _On my way._


	5. Protocol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn faces up to reality.

###  [Protocol](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/49457319065/protocol)

Quinn stands over the stove in her college’s common room.

Finally, some things click into place. Finally she starts understanding that all the attention Rachel once gave her wasn’t because she meant anything, anything at all, to Rachel. It was just Rachel’s protocol. Just her way of doing business. Just the way she treated anyone, anyone at all, who so much as looked her in the eye.

Protocol: an answer to every email, a response to every phone call. Always friendly and polite, if on occasion pointed. She treated Quinn no different than a stranger. In fact, she probably treated strangers in a friendlier fashion, simply because you never know, you never ever know, whether that might get you somewhere you couldn’t get before.

That makes it all a little easier to accept, somehow. For so long she’s felt strung along, then rejected, politely, even kindly, but rejected nonetheless. And anyway, now she knows. If a girl likes her, she might like her back.

But she’s unlikely to go looking anytime soon.

Because it still stings. Because she still wants to see her and talk. It’s crazy. And the little green pills help, but they don’t erase the drama, or the feelings of the drama. Funny she chose Drama, isn’t it?

Funny how in high school it was all drama under cover of no drama. Then just drama after drama after drama. Or was it trauma after trauma?

She realizes she had her own protocol. A slushy for every geek, for anyone who crossed her in any way, delivered by one of her minions. A cruel word, elegantly placed, cleared a path for her. Of course, reversal of fortune changed her. She wonders if Rachel will ever change. She’s forever rewarded for what she does. And she’s oblivious to checks on her behavior.

Quinn doesn’t have the time, the attention, or the patience to wait for her any more.

She doesn’t know if this will give her closure, or even if she wants closure, but the evidence of this stupid, stupid breach of protocol is pressing on her, keeping her from going forward.

She lights the burner, removes the train pass from her pocket, and makes ashes of what once was a dream.


	6. Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel has forgotten something. If only...

###  [Forgotten](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/51246638349/forgotten)

**Forgotten**

There is something she’s forgotten. Something… It’s not work-related. It’s not school-related. Not exactly. There is something pricking at the back of her mind.

Rachel checks the to-do list on her phone. She has answered all pertinent emails, messages, texts. She has returned all voice mails. She has finished homework for the night. She has learned the choreography, the lines, and the lyrics.

And yet there’s something she’s omitting. A tickle in her mind. She looks through the things on her desktop. She looks through the things on her desk. She checks the drawers. Something’s going to tell her what it is.

She throws herself on the bed and scrolls through her phone again. Talked with both dads recently. Okay. Check the old emails. Bingo. She starts humming A-Train without thinking about it.

The thing is—and she couldn’t possibly expect someone in a regular drama program to understand—is that she has professional auditions, and callbacks, and voice, and dance, all in addition to her regular drama program and her core studies. Rachel’s time is utterly and completely spoken for by NYADA. And when you add in the demands of rather demanding housemates—yes, housemates plural, thank you very much—boy trouble, and the weather for heaven’s sake, how could anybody imagine she’d be able to take a weekend off?

The train pass tacked to the bulletin board comes into focus. She takes it down and examines it. It expires at the end of the month.

Really, she never should have accepted it. It was too much, too soon. She has to admit, though, that it was very attractive that Quinn Fabray, of all people, wanted—for that moment at least—to spend time with her, to be her friend (kind of).

But then Quinn never came to New York.

If she returns it now, maybe Quinn can get some money back from it.

That would be the right thing. Right?

She slides the pass into an envelope. She addresses it.

She sticks the stamp on.

She enters an item in her to-do list and checks it off.

 


	7. Something's Gotta Give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brittany’s brief time trip in Empathy sets off two chain reactions, both in Rachel/2013’s timestream and in Brittany/2020’s - tie-ins to my MIT Britt fics, Quinntana friendship fics, lil bit o’ Faberry fics, and SFTF fics.

###  [Something’s Gotta Give](http://mad-cow-mama.tumblr.com/post/76932342642/somethings-gotta-give)

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

What happens?

***

This will be Brittany’s most courageous act.

Okay, maybe risking snuffing herself in order to try to help her friends _then_  was her most courageous act. But since she and her entire timestream  _haven’t_  been dismantled by her temporal meddling, she needs to complete her own circle.

The fact that she did, in fact, return to her timestream confirms what she has suspected for some time now. Timestreams spin off from one another. When a crucial decision is made, the possible timestreams containing that decision spin off from the possible timestreams that do not.

Timestreams don’t stop. Once a potential timestream has become a reality, it continues. This means that nudging Quinn and Rachel together _then_  won’t improve things for them  _her_ _e, now_. It means that urging Santana to visit her in her first year at MIT won’t magically get them together  _here or_ _now_.

But the possibility of their getting together  _here and_ _now_ still exists. She has to make that decision. Then Santana will have to make a decision.

When a door closes, perhaps somewhere a window opens. 

***

**Part I… 2013.**

It’ll require a major change, but Quinn is ready for it. Drama has become so very tiresome.

Most of her credits would work toward Comparative Literature, so… In a way, she’d like to leave Yale behind, but it’s a known environment, and there’s a certain amount of comfort she gets here. Besides, she’s upped her meds twice, and she’s simply getting a bit more practical about decisions.

She’s teetering on the edge when the least expected text arrives.

Maybe an impromptu break would take the ache down a notch. Maybe a change of scenery could make the stage seem less strange. Maybe. Just maybe. But Rachel?

***

Santana’s phone chimes a text.

_—Can I call now?_

_—K_ , she replies, and the ring she hasn’t heard for months is almost immediate.

"What do you need, Quinn?"

"I got a text from Rachel saying  _Come to New York_.”

"Okaaay…"

"I’m at Grand Central."

"And you called me…?"

"She’s not answering. I need directions."

"You didn’t need all that much direction when we last saw each other.”

"Fuck off."

"Well, you’re in luck. I’m surprising Brittany at MIT this weekend. You can have my room. If you need it. Rachel was passed out on the floor in there last I saw her."

"And you left her?"

"Okay, I did take her to her room before I left."

***

Rachel rouses herself. It takes her several moments to recollect where she is. Where she’s been.  _When_  she’s been. She has no idea how she got to her bed. There are seventeen texts on her phone. One from Santana — _Away for a few days, see ya—_ , and the rest…

From Quinn.

_—Hey, what’s up?_

_—RU OK?_

_—Call me._

_—Rachel?_

_—Rachel, you can’t do this. Please at least text me._

And so on and so on, until:

_—I’m on the next train._

Rachel scrolls to the top, finds the message she didn’t send, and pieces begin to snap together.

 _Brittany_.

The knock at the door brings her back to the present, and she’s there before she has a chance to think.

Through the peephole she confirms it’s Quinn. It  _is_  Quinn.

She opens the door, and they look in each other’s eyes. They are still.

And then they are moving together, the inevitable embrace. No warning shots fired, they clasp each other tightly, no clapping, not frightened, just close, full body contact.

Quinn’s body softens. Her cheek pressed to Rachel’s spreads relief through her belly and to her extremities. The stress, so familiar she’s stopped noticing it, dissipates. Rachel notices and at last invites her in.

Rachel, for her part, is still pretty shocky. Partly on automatic pilot, she offers beverages and invites Quinn to sit. Neither seems able to let go the other’s hand. Both have shiny eyes. There are no words. For once.

***

Quinn shifts her weight on the couch.

They still have not yet let go of each other’s hands. Still they are gazing into each other’s eyes. Then they are still.

"It’s been such a long, long time," Rachel manages.

"I kept waiting. For you to come to me,” admits Quinn.

"We’re still friends though, right?"

“Right.” Quinn looks away, becoming aware that her hand is… sweating.

***

They’re on their second glass of wine, and still few words have passed between them. Nothings, politenesses, social grease.

Quinn needs to be brave.

"I— I’m thinking of quitting Drama," she says, and it takes her a moment to recognize her own double meaning.

Rachel nods, a hundred futures going up in smoke. Some futures they are acting together. Some they…aren’t acting at all, but they are together.

"I’m tired of lying."

Rachel tips her head to the side, a question in her eyes.

 _(Quinn, take heart_.)

"Rachel, I—" she swallows. "Have you ever thought about— me?"

***

Rachel and Quinn lapse again into silence, their gaze unbroken, their hands still clasped, still. The memory of the time trips hits Rachel all at once with almost physical force. Her hand turns clammy. Her face acquires a fine sheen. The reason she’s here, the reason Quinn’s here, is Brittany. Brittany who reached into her heart while she was sleeping and pulled out so much pain, so much love, and examined it all, felt it all, knew her, all of her, in a way nobody ever has before.

Brittany knew.

_(Rachel, be brave. You are powerful. You are in charge of your life. It’s been such a long, long time.)_

She leans her forehead against Quinn’s.

“To be honest,” she says, “Yes. Yes I have. I do.”

***

**Part II… 2020.**

Deep in her browser, Brittany uses the time between Boston and New York to track Santana. It’s been seven years. Seven years of avoidance, seven years of waiting, seven years trying to take a shortcut and ending up taking a long, long way.

It’s so easy to get distracted when subverting time.

_(Ha. Found her.)_

It’ll take another hour and thirteen minutes to reach Penn Station. The noise, the motion, the flow of people inside and places outside make it nearly impossible to sink in, to replenish her own flow. But she has to try.

This will be her most courageous act.

Going to Santana now, after all this time, requires courage, yes, and contrition, and empathy.

It requires love.

Love was never lacking. Touch, proximity, nonverbal communication was. They were always the best together. Like together together, in contact. Perseverance was lacking, in a way, lacking between the two of them, but, meantime, they’ve both learned a lot about standing on their own feet.

Santana used to be the immovable object. Stubborn, stilted sometimes, stuck seeking the easy path, Santana required push after push to gain enough momentum to launch. Brittany, once the irresistible force, provided push after push, then, catapulted by her Santana-planted belief in her own brilliance, launched herself.

And then… remained in orbit.

Until the orbit decayed, and burning, she fell. She is falling yet. She prays she will fall into Santana’s lap and stay there. But what of Santana? Seven years is a long time. She’s probably attached to someone. She’d be crazy not to. She could take her pick. If she wanted to.

Enough.

Enough of that kind of thinking, which Brittany knows, propagates itself into action. Or lack of action.

Today is a day for action. Today Brittany is being proactive. Today she has made a decision. Because of loving Rachel, for that moment, the chill in her heart subsided long enough that her love for Santana, long quashed, has surfaced, and now burns.

***

Quinn packed Santana the world’s best roast beef sandwich this morning. It’s maybe more bread than she should be eating, but it’s delicious, and certainly she can add in an extra hour of spinning tonight. It’s lovely to get these tokens of love from her lover, especially since really it’s Quinn who needs someone to organize her. When Santana is in performance, she can provide that support, but when she’s in rehearsals, it’s all she can do to get up every morning.

It’s been a strange six months, living with a lover, but now, Santana feels strangely safer than she has in a long time. Than she has since…

Than she has since Brittany.

That was so long ago. And they were so young. Surely she’s married by now. Surely she has children. Sometimes Santana wants so much just to call her, but surely she’s changed her number after all this time. Brittany was simply the best. They were always the best together.

***

Brittany shows up just as rehearsal is wrapping. She hangs in the shadows. Quinn shows up too, and Brittany watches as Santana greets her with kisses.

Brittany begins to freeze, to fade away.

But Santana notices the movement in the back and sees her. In seconds, Santana seizes her. Quinn might be having a seizure.

_(It was always them. Quinn has never, ever had a chance with Brittany around. Now it’s just a matter of the details, the timing. Fuck.)_

***

Santana’s world tilts when she catches sight of Brittany. She shifts her gaze between Quinn and Brittany, unable to breathe for a moment, then recovers and wraps her arms around Brittany.

Brittany still can’t breathe. Her mouth opens and closes two or three times before Santana loosens her grip a little.

"Hi," says Santana.

"Hey," says Britt.

Quinn is counting to ten, to twenty, before she says anything.

_(First you breathe. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair, it isn’t fair.)_

"Brittany!" she says at last, trying to smile.

"I— we—" Santana trails off.

"I’m too late," Brittany barely whispers.

"Never," Santana breathes.

Ice floods Quinn’s nervous system.

"I— you—," stammers Quinn, then she gathers herself and throws out, "Why don’t you two get some dinner, and I’ll meet you at home?"

***

What do you say to the love of your life when you haven’t seen her in seven years?

_(Bravery, Brittany. Time to take heart.)_

"Can we just get a slice and take a walk?"

_(That’s not it.)_

They get a slice and start walking. What they need to be doing is talking, but neither of them knows how to break the ice.

Brittany finishes her slice, sucks the grease off her fingers, and takes a deep breath. It is decided. She catches Santana’s hand and looks long into her eyes.

"I— just want you," she says at last.

It isn’t all she wants to say, but having been on the other side of this conversation, she knows it says a lot.

"Britt-Britt, are you crying?"

Brittany nods.

"It’s been a long, long time."

"I know," Brittany croaks. "I kept waiting. Waiting for you to come to me."

***

Santana gets Quinn’s text: — _Going to Rachel’s_.

"I’m getting chilly, and I have to get out of these shoes. Let’s go home."

"Quinn—?"

"At Rachel’s. Where she always goes when she’s mad at me."

Santana takes Brittany’s pinkie in hers and leads the way.

***

The dam is breaking. Inside, Brittany is a mess of swamped debris, churning. Both of them are people she loves. She has to tip her face to the ceiling to detain her tears.

"I do love you, you know I do, but I love her too," echoes in Brittany’s ears.

"Does she know that?"

"I think so."

"I’ll get the first train in the morning."

"Britt—"

"I’ve spent every moment of all this time trying to get back to you, trying to get you to come back to me, and I should have just gone to you. I’ve been wandering the sewers all this time. When I should have just come home to you." The words roll out, and Brittany’s hands rise to her lips as if she could stuff them back in.

It’s Santana’s turn to tip her head to the ceiling.

It’s Santana’s turn to take heart.

Both of them are people she loves.

***

Santana pulls Brittany into her arms. Brittany ends up half in her lap. All of her muscles seem to sigh at once. They laugh. They were always the best together.

For Santana, holding Brittany feels like a ten-ton boulder rolling down a mountain. It smashes through anything in its path, including five-hundred-year-old trees, homes, cars, lives. Inevitable. Inexorable. Insurmountable.

And so comfortable.

Something’s gotta give.

She doesn’t want to hurt Quinn. But that too is inevitable. It was, even if Brittany hadn’t shown up. Their domesticity together is a joke, fraught with tension, as if they both vibrate on frequencies that are just somehow too high and discordant. The sex is lovely, but there’s all the time in between the sex. They are both high-stress, high-maintenance people, and it takes a real effort just to be together. Whereas Brittany… Brittany feels like a down-lined nest, even after all this time. Almost as if no time at all had passed. It is easy to take care of Brittany. It is easy to let Brittany take care of her.

Santana squeezes her arms around Brittany and presses into her.

“You know, I have always loved you the most.”

***

It might be the touch that tips the balance. The tips of Brittany’s fingers graze Santana’s knee. And in that moment, relief floods through both of them audibly. Santana’s eyes go wide, and Brittany’s go narrow. She’s warm, suddenly, to the marrow. Her brow unfurrows, her jaw releases, her cheeks have fewer creases, her mouth no longer pouts but slowly buds into a nascent smile. Their eyes meet. Color rises, they slide their feet closer, and Santana brings her fingers closer still, until their fingers interweave. Brittany knows she ought to leave, but she’s swamped with love she’s refused to feel for seven long, long years.

The fear that’s been clamped around her takes a powder, letting Santana in.

Santana has guarded herself so securely for so long that she’s warded off her open heart and now— she’s walking toward a freight train. She means to take a few steps to the side so she’ll be safe. But today her feet are rooted to the track. Today she must hit it head on.

_(God, she has missed this girl.)_

_(And for her part, so has Brittany.)_

Brittany takes Santana’s hand and presses it into her own breastbone.

“Santana Lopez, I know you’re involved with Quinn, but I love you. I want to be with you. If not today, then someday, I want to be yours. Someday, do you want to be mine?”

Santana sinks into Brittany’s eyes for several moments. The warmth she finds there softens her. She squeezes Brittany’s hand, brings it to her lips.

“I do.”

***

**Part III… 2020.**

Quinn usually walks, but tonight she’s taking a cab. Her knees are weak. A wave of nausea hits her hard, but she keeps it down. She’ll get home, have a glass of wine, order some takeout, and watch some TV. And if she can manage to calm down a bit, she’ll consider her options.

It wasn’t supposed to last.

It was a pairing of convenience.

That’s what they’ve told each other, on and off, for years—what they’ve still been telling each other since Quinn moved in.  _You_ _can’t always get what you want._  It’s become a joke between them, but today… Today it’s not funny.

Maybe now is not the time to be alone.

Maybe…

Just maybe.

***

The TV is boring, the food is bland, and the wine, in  _her_  mouth anyway, has gone to vinegar.

Quinn’s always known her lover loves another. She’s always known she was a case of  _love the one you’re with_. And there’s nothing particularly easy about being Santana’s lover. It’s just that it’s been such a long, long time.

The possibility of Santana and Brittany reuniting had receded.

But with Brittany here, it’s inevitable.

Much as she doesn’t want to be alone, Quinn (kind of) does want them together. At some point. But not now.

Now is not a good time to be alone.

She pulls out her phone.

 _—Brittany’s here_.

_—Do you want to come over?_

_—Really don’t want to be alone._

_—Come over then._

Then Quinn sends one to Santana:

_—Going to Rachel’s._

***

Rachel greets Quinn with a glass of her favorite Merlot, a cheerleader hug, and a kiss on the cheek.

“Rachel, it’s me. Quit the fake stuff.”

“Fake?”

“Don’t razzle-dazzle me. It’s too much.”

“Tell me what you need. Shoulder to cry on, place to stay, someone to drink with…?”

“Just shut up, Rachel, and pour yourself a glass.”

***

They’re on their third glass of wine, and few words have passed between them. Nothings, politenesses, social grease, a few complaints about Brittany’s sudden appearance and Santana’s reaction to it.

"Sometimes, I just want to punch her," Quinn’s words are slightly mushy.

"Why punch, when you’re a genius slapper?" counters Rachel.

Quinn smiles for the first time all night.

"It’s true, I am."

"I know, I remember."

Quinn puts down her glass.

"I remember you."

Rachel smiles, this time. They look in each other’s eyes for several moments.

Quinn shifts her weight on the couch.

She needs to be brave.

Rachel senses her tension.

"It’s been such a long, long time," Rachel prompts.

Quinn considers, presses her lips together, takes a breath. The decision is made.

"I kept waiting. For you to come to me,” says Quinn.

There are several moments of silence. Quinn forgets to breathe.

“ _I_  kept waiting. For  _you_  to come to  _me_ ,” admits Rachel.

This is suddenly a different conversation than what Quinn had imagined it would be.

"Can this count? Now? After all this time? Does this count?" she says.

"It does," says Rachel.

"I don’t want to settle for someone. I don’t want to be settled for. I don’t want to be someone’s (kind of) lover. Don’t I deserve to be someone’s one-and-only?" murmurs Quinn.

Rachel puts down her glass.

"You do."

"Do you think I could be yours?"

Rachel considers, then decides.

"I do."

 


	8. Poppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn's garden.

Poppy

Sunlight seeps into her skin as earth packs in between the grooves of her fingertips and under her nails. She fills her lungs with clear air, air laced with the dust of the dirt she tills. One by one, she loosens the soil, slides her fingers in and underneath and gently lifts the weed out of the ground.

Weed is a funny word. Weeds are plants, too. But some context has deemed them unfit or dysfunctional or unwanted. Quinn has decided that really weeds are the unintentional plants in the garden. Maybe once they served a purpose but spun out of control. Or maybe they were intentional in someone else’s garden and drifted over, now choking out what she really wants in her own.

It’s a funny idea, her own garden. But after her counselor suggested it, freshman year, she found a community garden near her residential college and put herself on the waiting list. Anything, anything at all to stay here. To head toward launching, to head away from Lima. So, now that she has her plot, she spends time tending it every day. Every single day.

She still cringes a little when she hears that ripping sound that happens when she’s left part of the root in the ground. Her mother would get frightened, her father furious, if she was so inexact.

“That’s not weeding,” he’d say, “It’ll just come right back,” he’d say. “Dig deeper and get all of it out. All of it!” He’d end up shouting, blustering, scaring her mother, and making Quinn remove all expression from her face, all feeling from her heart. Retreat was the Fabray women’s specialty, a different flavor for each one.

But this is her garden.

If the roots rip, they’ll come back later, giving her an opportunity to remove them again. In the meantime, the bright spots in the garden will be able to shine. It changes all the time, never static, always waiting for her to make the next move.

The blooming is inexorable. She planted bulbs last fall, and others planted bulbs every fall before. The bulbs multiply within the dirt, too, so there are blooms, one variety overlapping another, all spring and some of the summer. She knows it’s biology, but she pretends it’s magic. Because biology, like magic, is all around her, inexplicable, needing to be noticed to exist.

Like Rachel.

These feelings are new. They are strong. It’s magic, almost, this deep sensation, not depression, not at all, just feeling all kinds of things deeply. Sure, there are tears at times, sometimes sad, but also sometimes joyful tears, and she rarely feels torn up. Sometimes she feels blown up, flown up, huge, wide, much larger than even when she was pregnant, expansive.

They are taking it slow.

But the major change, their acknowledgement of wanting to be close, is making all the difference. Dropping the drama between them has made it possible to go back to Drama, to feel her way into her parts, to act, to speak, to dream. She is not static. She no longer wishes for stasis. Changing, growing, blooming, one after another, making her garden hers. Deciding they want to be involved in each other’s lives organically, yet intentionally, gives them a structure all the school and jobs didn’t.

It’s funny, weeding— she thinks she has an area clear of all the unintentional plants, shifts her perspective a bit, and finds a whole other crop. It used to make her angry, but now, it just seems like more opportunities to practice. Loosening the dirt, gently lifting the plant out, again and again, because it’s not a finite thing to grow a garden, to grow a life. It changes. Constantly. Sometimes it’s ugly, sometimes it’s a mess, sometimes it needs water, or rest. But the best— sporadically ordered blooms, mostly intentional, shining in the sunlight.

This weekend Rachel will visit New Haven. Quinn still doesn’t really know what either of them wants, other than being intentionally close. Sometimes she just wants to throw her arms around her. Sometimes she just wants eye contact. Rachel seems to drop her Broadway and her Gleek when they are together, a huge relief for both of them. They are just two girls at this point, two girls who want to be around each other.

An unintentional plant blew into her plot last year, and she left it to grow, just to see what it would become. It has broad fuzzy leaves, a stalk, and a round bud. And the round bud is starting to open now. By next week, its voluptuous coral pink bloom will be open, inviting. What luck that she managed not to extricate this one, this plant she thought was a weed, and with a shift of perspective, cultivated into a beautiful possibility.


End file.
